On April 19th two years ago, Levon Helm passed away. Here is his final resting place, at the Woodstock Cemetery. Like almost all final resting places, there is something ineffable about his, an inadequate valediction that only goes to show how gloriously rich and complex life is. After all, what could you put here that …
Having spent the better part of three years thinking and writing about Levon Helm, I have inevitably also devoted a lot of thought to The Weight, the mournful, elegiac, mysterious, inscrutable song written by Robbie Robertson and made famous by The Band. Somehow over the years, it evolved from a simple if elusive pop song …
This article first appeared in the Daily Beast today, April 21, 2013. “I don’t want a biography,’’ Levon Helm told Jacob Hatley in 2007 when the young director came to Helm’s Woodstock home and broached the idea of making a film about the venerable singer and drummer’s life. Helm had no interest in exploring the …
Originally published in The Huffington Post on April 9, 2013: Anyone who spends any time watching cable television is bound to develop a fairly depressed view of the American character. Vain housewives, self-absorbed designers, responsibility-denying restauranteurs, narcissistic chefs, fascistic dance teachers, scheming survivors, snide judges–altogether we see a whining, insecure, blame-shifting, easily-insulted mass of humanity …
ROGER EBERT, LEVON HELM, RODRIGUEZ: RETURN OF THE STOIC HERO? Read More »
This year that is fast disappearing will not be remembered in these quarters with very much warmth. It was a fairly hideous, sickening year, the year that I felt I got old. But like all good things, the bad ones come to an end as well, and thanks to some much appreciated end of the …
(from newyorker.com) Leave it to Lucinda Williams, whose astringent lyrics have proven her capable of leaving no romantic notion unexamined, to ask the question of the hour. Sitting backstage at the Izod Center, in East Rutherford, before doing her turn at “Love for Levon,” the all-star tribute concert for Levon Helm, who died last April …
IZOD CENTER, EAST RUTHERFORD NJ, WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 3RD, 8:00 PM Read More »
Rehearsing the finale at the Love for Levon concert. Above, from left: John Hiatt, John Prine, Grace Potter, Roger Waters, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Lucinda Williams. Below left: John Mayer, Amy Helm, Teresa Williams, Larry Campbell. Below right: Gregg Allman, Bruce Hornsby, Warren Haynes and Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket Above: Dierks …
IZOD CENTER, EAST RUTHERFORD NJ, WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 3RD, 5:30 PM Read More »
I sent a good part of a glorious day in Woodstock, reporting an article about the upcoming Levon Helm tribute concert. I got some great interviews with Larry Campbell, Teresa Williams, Levon’s rather groovy manager Barbara O’Brien, and the estimable Don Was, and got to listen in on some amazing rehearsals. Above, Byron Issacs, Teresa …
LEVON HELM’S BARN, WOODSTOCK NY, OCTOBER 1, 3 PM Read More »
Led by a great band of musicians headed by guitarists Larry Campbell and Jimmy Iovine, the funeral procession that took Levon Helm to his final rest paraded through Woodstock, where Helm had long made his home.
On Saturday night, Ginny and I and our friends Cathy, Tim, Greg, Susan, Jo and Dave took a limo (!) up to Woodstock to see the legendary Levon Helm perform at his studio/home. In this warm, intimate atmosphere (the audience couldn’t have numbered more than 200), Helm and his wonderful band (among the players: Larry …